weekend inspiration

folon

ziraldo pinto’s ‘guernica’

loran speck

horst haitzinger

alex nino

daan jippes

heinz edelmann

peter de seve

robert bateman

© ziraldo pinto / folon / loran speck / horst haitzinger / alex nino /
© disney enterprises, inc/daan jippes
© heinz edelmann / peter de seve / robert bateman

paul julian 4

the following recreated backgrounds, painted by PAUL JULIAN, are from the 1951 released TWEETY & SILVESTER WB short – TWEET TWEET TWEETY.

© WB

more edelmann

following some illustrations HEINZ EDELMANN did for the FRANKFURTER ALLGEMEINE FAZ-MAGAZIN, for TWEN and WDR, all published during the eighties.

© heinz edelmann
© FAZ magazin / TWEN / WDR

watercolor

four more recreated disney watercolor backgrounds, the first two from the 1936 SILLY SYMPHONY – THREE LITTLE WOLVES, directed by DAVID HAND. and the 1939 color remake SILLY SYMPHONY classic – THE UGLY DUCKLING, directed by JACK CUTTING.

© disney enterprises, inc

theatre

WOLFGANG ZNAMENACEK was one of germany’s most important theatre stage designer in the last century. born in 1913 his carriere started in 1932 at the theatre in cologne. he worked until his tragic death in 1953 at the most prestigious theatres throughout germany and as a film-set designer as well.

the pictures are from the book KULISSEN, published by sternoffizin verlag die brigg, augsburg
© wolfgang znamenacek

frozen

some more production designs for the AMBLIMATION production BALTO, released in 1995. all designs are 21 x 11.5 cm, painted with AD/pantone-markers and gouache between 1992 and 1993 in the london studio.

© amblin/universal

paul julian 3

PAUL JULIAN painted these backgrounds for the 1950 released and by FRIZ FRELENG directed WB-cartoon CANARY ROW.

© WB

shanghai

these screencaps are from a chinese animation masterpiece – MUDI, or – ‘the boy with the bamboo flute’. animated in 1963 by TE WEI and QIAN JAJUN, produced by studio shanghai. when I was teaching in china two years ago I had a chance to meet several of the animators of studio shanghai’s past. most of them are now teaching animation to the new generation of artists. the animation technique of the above film is very interesting. when I was visiting studio shanghai I saw a few originals. some of the animation was done in the traditional chinese watercolor technique on special watercolor paper. the backgrounds were painted with cel paint and ink on cels and then photographed on top of the animation. the other way around. beautiful watercolors!

© studio shanghai

studie nr 1

flora

PAUL FLORA, 1922 – 2009, was born in tyrol in austria and studied in munich, germany, at the academy of fine arts under the famous norwegian illustrator and painter OLAF GULBRANSSON, who worked for the political magazine SIMPLICISSIMUS. FLORA works first as a caricature artist, later he illustrates books with his very own technique, a very well composed ‘criss-cross’ nib/ink-drawing technique, that makes him famous. following are some illustrations from his 1966 published book ( diogenes publ.) KOENIGSDRAMEN.

© paul flora / diogenes verlag

scrooge

looking at the trailer of the new disney/zemeckis production A CHRISTMAS CAROL I was reminded of the character scrooge in a book that came on the market in 1979 – ‘a christmas carol’ with puppet characters and scenery created by PETER FLUCK and ROGER LAW, the same artists who did the puppet versions of famous polititians and other celebrities in their tv-series SPITTING IMAGE. the famous english advertising photographer JOHN LAWRENCE JONES created the amazing photographs of the CHARLES DICKENS christmas-world. in case someone is interested – ISBN 3-88420-008-9, penguin books london.

© peter fluck / roger law / john lawrence jones
© penguin books
© disney enterprises, inc / bob zemeckis + image movers

les amoureux

RAYMOND PEYNET was born in paris in 1908. he became quite famous around the world through his LOVERS or LES AMOUREUX, a young poet and his girlfriend. the images were reproduced on porcelain, scarves and as dolls, in books and everything else you can imagine in merchandise. GEORGES BRASSENS and CHARLES AZNAVOUR dedicated songs to the drawn characters. RAYMOND PEYNET died 90 years old in 1999. 1974 an animated feature film, produced in italy, was released – IL GIRO DEL MONDO DEGLI INNAMORATI DI PEYNET, ‘the travel around the world of the lovers created by peynet’. directed by CESARE PERFETTO, scenario by MANFREDO MANFREDI, music by ENNIO MORRICONE. the story of the film is more than uninteresting, animation very limited. but – there are a few backgrounds they are standing out, I recreated some of them…

© raymond peynet
© ital noleggio cinnematografico

nr.340

© bilderfabrik

twen

some more EDELMANN art, illustrations he for a very popular german magazine in the seventies, TWEN, – some more of his posters for the german tv-station WDR in the eighties, and a few of his numerous bookcovers for the publishing house HANSER.

© heinz edelmann / WDR / hanser verlag

magic

from my second year in art school on I worked as a freelance illustrator for all different advertising agencies in duesseldorf, at that time called the advertising centre of germany. with that income I financed my studies, but – what was way more important, I learned more about drawing and painting techniques than in my school. it was 1970 and the first MAGIC MARKER felt pen showed up in a few specialized art-stores. very expensive. but in the ad-agencies they had complete sets and I used them. it was like a revolution in design. only comparable to what you can do with photoshop or painter today. can you imagine, before the feltpen era the illustrations had to be colored with watercolor or gouache. that must have taken way longer and you had a lot of limitations – special paper, special ink for the outlines and so on.
the feltpen changed all that. you were fast, could work on nearly all kinds of paper, but – the most important, the final illustration came pretty close to a ‘printed’-look. I was so happy, that someone had invented these MAGIC little sticks just when I started to join the business world. the smell was interesting as well. years later an illustrator got diagnosed with liver disease from the poisoneous benzol fumes. there is always something dangerous connected to the nice things.
for many years I did that job, – storyboards for commercials, layouts for ads in magazines, finished illustrations – realistic or cartoony, animated commercials and more. for TEAM BBDO, SCHIRNER, GREY and GGK, DDB, SAATCHI & SAATCHI and RSCG, whatever that means to you…
I still have a few of the MAGIC pens left. could not throw ’em away, too many memories.

the de vil mansion

some more recreated backgrounds from disney’s 101 DALMATIANS

© disney enterprises, inc

a.j.casson

during my work on MULAN I was introduced by RICK SLUITER, the art director and a canadian, to one of the most well known CANADIAN painters – ALFRED JOSEPH CASSON, 1898 – 1992. this painter became one of my favorite artists of recent times. because of his style, his way to combine colors and shapes. you can see below some of his art and will understand why I admire his work. CASSON was a member of the canadian group of painters – GROUP OF SEVEN, together with FRANKLIN CARMICHAEL.

© a.j.casson

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
there is so much interst in A.J.CASSON’S work that I wanted to add the details of a beautiful book about his life-work. I have to warn you though – it might be a bit expensive, and it is H U G E !

A.J.CASSON – his life and works/a tribute
by paul duvall
cerebrus/prentice-hall publ. toronto, 1980
ISBN 0-920892-02-7

paul julian 2

I really like a lot of the WB animated shorts, I love ’em because they have a different kind of humor. mel blanc’s voice characterisations are funny anyway. but – when you look at a lot of them single-frame-wise, you will find some of the worst drawings, in animation and in BG. lots of very ugly backgrounds, badly painted, wrong shapes, no composition, colors a disaster. they were apparently not done for ‘art’-reasons, just to have something behind the animation. no wonder, only very few BG’s survived. they threw ’em away. there is such an indredible gap in quality between these BG’s and the disney ones, where you can see that the artists were searching for a special look, were improving their quality, short after short. the only ones from the WB archives where I want to do some ‘restauration’ work are the BG’s PAUL JULIAN did. and even there are a few… well, you will see yourself. just sloppy work! as if they had been in a hurry. this is very interesting for me, because I never really noticed it so badly until I started this archeological restauration work. quality-standard-wise we see a lot of better artwork today. the problem is, most of our s t o r i e s don’t work.

a n y w a y – the recreated ones following are PAUL JULIAN’S backgrounds. he doesn’t have a credit in this short, but his style – even in 1944 – is clearly recognizable. DUCK SOUP TO NUTS, directed by FRIZ FRELENG, a very, very funny cartoon. daffy duck goes over the top…

© WB

update 1

I updated the PAUL JULIAN 1 post from september 26, 2008. tomorrow I will have some more PAUL JULIAN recreated backgrounds.

sky

JOHN WATKISS did a lot of designwork inclusive storyboards on the 2004 released SKY CAPTAIN AND THE WORLD OF TOMORROW. recently he worked on the new version of SHERLOCK HOLMES and you can see some of the artwork after the film comes out. john moved back to brighton about a year and a half back. he’s currently working on a lot of personal stuff, a DAVY CROCKET- project for WB, and a very large project for the Estate of Robert E. Howard. there is a lot more to see on his website.
following some of his ‘sky captain’ storyboards.

© Brooklyn Films II/Paramount Pictures/john watkiss